Meredith O'Brien: My anti-resolution list

Meredith O'Brien

Monday

Dec 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Around this time of year, people make all kinds of vows to do things differently now that we’re in a new calendar year. Here’s where this article can come in handy. I can provide you with alternatives to those “healthier” resolution lists you’ve likely been seeing, at least when it comes to parenting. Here's a list of funny things I (probably) won't actually do.

It’s a new year. A new decade, actually. Time for a fresh start, or so all the year-end feature stories loaded with expert tips on how to improve one’s life tell us.

Around this time of year, people make all kinds of vows to do things differently now that we’re in a new calendar year. Folks resolve to do things like model good habits for their young children, exercise more, watch TV less, serve healthier meals, stop shouting so much when the rug rats spill their drinks, develop a more restrained response to kids’ temper tantrums and finally read "War & Peace."

But by mid-January, as the bills for our harried Christmas shopping excursions come, many of those well-intentioned resolutions wind up tossed aside like crinkled bits of discarded Christmas wrapping paper.

Here’s where this column can come in handy. I can provide you with alternatives to those “healthier” resolution lists you’ve likely been seeing, at least when it comes to parenting. Hopefully, my personal list of New Year’s resolutions will inspire you to make some of your own, down-to-earth pledges that you can live with ... until at least, oh, I don’t know, Valentine’s Day.

Campaign to make “underparenting” cool

Time Magazine in a recent cover story claimed that the scourge of “overparenting” (alternatively known as “helicopter parenting” or “sucking-the-life-out-of-your-kids-by-doing-everything-for-them-and-therefore-having-no-life-of-your-own”) is on the wane. I, however, remain skeptical.

Therefore, I’m resolving to use 2010 to promote the notion of “underparenting,” or, by another name, “benign neglect.” Translation: I’m planning to give my kids more freedom in 2010, as long as they agree to come get me in the event of emergency, injury or if they need me to bail them out of jail.

If, as a result, the children wind up eating some dirt because I’m not hovering over them and telling them not to, or gnaw on some pre-chewed gum they got off of a park bench, well, I’ll just think of it as a way to build up their immune system.

Embrace the crazy: Stress less, smile more

When I look at the jam-packed family calendar that hangs on our refrigerator, I have to, on a daily basis, resist the urge to stick my head in the freezer. Two kids on two different basketball teams with practices and games. Another kid with hockey sessions on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Plus there are after-school activities. I could go on and on as I -- the family’s unofficial, indentured servant of an administrative assistant – am the keeper of the family calendar and know the nitty gritty of the schedule.

But this year, when I start feeling overwhelmed by the migraine-inducing, hellish calendar, I’m determined not to let it get to me. I’ll borrow a technique I saw on an old episode of "Gilmore Girls": Driven crazy by her domineering and judgmental mother for years, Lorelai Gilmore decided to turn the crazy around. Whenever her mom got on her case about something, Lorelai would smile and revel in her mother’s disapproval. Sometimes, she’d even invite maternal scorn, just so she could laugh at it.

So if you see me driving around carting children from location to location (most likely running 20 minutes late while my kids are wailing that they’re hungry) I’m going be trying to smile like a maniac (or escaped mental patient) and laugh in the face of scheduling madness. Maybe I’ll even “embrace the crazy” and add more non-essential errands to the schedule to amp up the excitement. Embracing the crazy will make me feel more Zen, right?

Try to be more like a TV mom

No matter what heinously over-the-top challenges face today’s TV moms, for most of them, even on the most uber-dramatic shows (I’m thinking "Desperate Housewives"), things pretty much seem to work out in the end. So I’m resolving to borrow child disciplinary strategies from TV moms.

For example, I’m thinking of employing the technique enacted by the parents on the ABC comedy "The Middle," where the parents made their misbehaving teen stay within a 5-foot radius of a parent at all times until the punishment ended. Sounds promising.

And, since so many of the TV moms these days are complete goofballs (like Christine Campbell on "The New Adventures of Old Christine" or the ones on "Desperate Housewives") falling far short of the ideals of “perfect parenting,” acting like a goofball mom is actually an achievable resolution.

Maybe I should also consider letting the kids sled down the second-floor stairs like Gaby did on "Desperate Housewives." After all, the kids didn’t get hurt, though Gaby was called a “lousy mom” by another mom. I would get bonus points toward my “underparenting” resolution.

More time with my faux ‘sister wives’

This goes along with the previous resolution about acting like a TV mom. The polygamist-centric HBO drama "Big Love" returns in January for a fourth season. The show is about a Utah family where one man is “married” to three different women who’ve mothered a whole bunch of his kids and live in three adjacent homes and help each other out with stuff.

Now I’m not in favor of polygamy, but as far as surrounding myself with supportive women to serve as members of the “village” Hillary Clinton referred to as being necessary for helping to raise a family, while I’m driving around smiling my way through the stress of trying to get kids to a thousand activities, as I attempt to “underparent” and take parenting tips from "Desperate Housewives," I’m going to really need the support of my gal pals ‘cause all that smilin’ll make me feel a bit unhinged.

To this last resolution, I must remain true: More Gals’ Nights Out. As for all the rest, well, maybe next year ...

Columnist Meredith O’Brien blogs about parenting at the Picket Fence Post (wickedlocalparents.com/picketfencepost) and about pop culture at Notes from the Asylum (suburbanmomnotes.blogspot.com). Follow her on Twitter: MeredithOBrien.

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